Okay. You got the guy kidnapped and the ransom is $30 million. How do you collect it? If it's $30 million cash, I guarantee you it's all marked bills. If it's $30 million in gold, you need to melt it down into new bars- I like this idea but it's a pain in the ass to do. If it's $30 million in diamonds, they can be traced. And forget about Swiss bank accounts, T-bills, gold certificates etc... they're all traceable. Same with rare art. How can you quickly get $30 million in untraceable, totally liquid currency?
Who says you have to melt/recast the gold right away? Take your time, enlist some help and the job is done.
No- I want the job done quickly. Keep in mind we have to repay loans fast. We can go with gold but we'd need a smelter and the closest I came to one is a Japanese guy with a private jet who would cost 25% and pay in yen. I want $30 million in my shirt pocket, totally untraceable.
"Want" all you wish - you're not going to get it. I'd do it my way and be quite happy. (Those loans could be easily and quickly repaid with gold - the debtors would be more than happy to receive it in that fashion.) Case closed. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Filter it through businesses with your own special accountants in countries with little regulation. Money laundering is common in Zambia from an article I read a few min ago for example. Or just disregard the ransom, and keep it all on the black market. ie selling the dudes organs Eh that's all I could come up with good luck with your 'story':bugeye:
bearer bonds or stocks Securities owned by and payable to whomever holds the physical certificate. Securities without a registered owner.
Launder it. No matter what you do, it's going to take time. Nothing illegal is as easy as it used to be anymore. Maybe get the 30 mil in drugs and then get to hustling. If you move heavy weight, you could easily unload 30 mil in drugs to several groups of the right people. That's all I can think of.
Firstly who is worth $30 Million? A country won't pay that much for a single person, the only people worth that much are either those that can release the cash themselves or those that have families that are willing to part with $30 Million. In most cases people that have been kidnapped would rather wait it out than see that much money be paid for their return. Even if it was unmarked, you'd still have the problem that your income would have to cover such expenditures, if it was found you were living above your means and buying expenses things with "Cash" it's going to raise questions about where the money is coming from if only for tax reasons. You'd only go for gold if you had a strategy to get rid of it, if you didn't have the strategy then you wouldn't pick it. dependent, you could have large stones recut, but that would dramatically decreases you're overall gain. Since people would have to be paid to do the job and every extra person cut in is one extra person that could link you back to your crime. The best method to my knowledge to make money from any such illicit gain would of course be like Jessie mentioned "Laundering" and to do that you'd need to have already spent legitimate money on setting up a Laundering operation. Now I'm not going to tell you what could be done, since I'm not about to aid people in working out how to thwart the law. In fact the law counts mostly on the stupidity of those that attempt to thwart the law to gain the upper-hand.
Yes, I can think of some people that are worth a quick $30 million.... that's the story. And yes, it's A STORY. The job would take $3 million up front, guns, stolen cars and so on- you know- good story stuff... stuff not accessible to me. Sheesh, the world changed on 9/11... I like gold because it's meltable and recastable. I was even thinking of including a coin company in the loop to launder the gold as 1 oz. coin collectibles sold to the public- an excellent way to launder gold. --- I read up on Bearer Bonds but it's a Macguffin that's been beaten to death in fiction: Bearer bonds in popular culture Since bearer bonds can have extremely high values, a physically manageable number of them can represent a huge amount of cash. For this reason, many movies and TV shows use bearer bonds when characters are on the hunt for very large sums of money (e.g., $10 million) (see also MacGuffin). In paper currency, this amount of money would be unwieldy, filling up several suitcases. But with bearer bonds, this sum can be represented in a small, convenient package. Several popular films and television series that feature bearer bonds in this role include the films Goldfinger,Wall Street, Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon 2, Die Hard, Heat, Mission Impossible, Panic Room , Steal( aka Riders),and the TV series 24, The Flash and Monk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearer_bond I wouldn't use bearer bonds because I don't trust them. If they're so anonymous, what's stopping people from counterfeiting them? --- I was thinking platinum but that stuff's hard to get a hold of 100 pounds of and even harder to launder. My current thought is $30 million in gold bricks. Can't think of anything more liquid: you just scratch off the registration number and melt it.
Hmm... Maybe use it to buy a large stockpile of something on the black market. Like cocaine or guns. Then resell everything on the black market...
Turning it to drug money, IMO is unethical. Sure we're talking kidnap but no one gets hurt in this deal. No need to kick it up a notch with Miami Vice. I want the bad guy walking away absolutely innocent of any wrongdoing, apart from the kidnapping (which again involves no violence).
Electronic bank transfers to something like a Swiss bank are probably cleanest. Or to a bank in Nigeria. To get the money out you would then need someone innocent to help you... so send an e-mail to everyone (yes, everyone) asking if they could help you transfer some funds out of the country, offering to give them 30% or so, and all you would need is for them to send you their bank details etc. Can't see a snag with this at all: it's a waterproof / air-tight / suffocationally good plan. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
There is no foolproof way, converting it to cocaine would be okay, but cocaine can be fakes with baking soda, and good luck checking the shipment for purity since there would be more than a 1,000 kilos (likely more, and you have to check each of them), plus you'd have more than a ton of cocaine to store and sell, good luck with that. Even swiss banks do sometimes cooperate these days, though. (E.g.: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123499439400216483.html) How about this, force the government to convert the money into casino chips, as at least they are fungible. If you "turn in" $30 million worth the next day you are screwed, but betting only a reasonable sum each day you could gamble them away and live in comped hotel rooms and off of casino buffet food for the rest of your life. The best way is to use a dupe. He sets up the bank account and splits the money with you, but he does not know your real name, and your share comes out in cash. When you part company, he gets pinched easily and you just have to make sure the trail from him to you is clean, and then live somewhere where no one will recognize you. There are a lot of ways that can go wrong. The next way is to get paid in something like gold (which will weigh...umm...a lot) and sit on it for decades before you spend a dime. The logistics of transporting that are such that i suspect you still get caught, but if you get it to your vault undetected, you are pretty safe.
By all means write a story, but my point is that in reality you would never get that much money for the release of a person unless their actual family was paying the ransom. The reason I mention this is because there are hostages in south america that have lived for years as hostages because their governments or families either would not, or could not pay their ransoms, and for the most part they ask far less than the sum you've put forwards. even in the recent film "The Taking of Pelham 123" theres the suggestion the amount of cash asked for is only $10 Million because of it being a limit. I'm not sure how fictional that limit is, but it does provide a clue that some writers have already taken into consideration limitations. It's also while the main plotline used a hostage situation for a more devious ploy.
Yes, the $30 million would come from the family's wealth. Trust me on that one- that's where the original idea came from. And I would expect the FBI to be involved- I have that one covered too. And stuff like satellite tracking, GPS etc... too. If anyone else has thoughts, please contribute- thanks to everyone so far...
First off, how do you kidnap someone without the threat of violence? Kidnapping is a completely unethical action, whether violent or not. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Secondly, taking 30 mil in drugs could lead to more twists and turns for your story or future stories. Just a thought. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The alternative to cash / currency / gold - is to take the ransom in the form of a (small) technological device (chip etc) that you know you can sell to some other global power for $30m. Easily concealable, lightweight etc. You wouldn't even need to mention what the device is, and deliberately not have people explain it... just that it is worth $30m to whoever sells it. If you use this idea... I want a credit!
